Culture Shock
by pluie.espoir
Summary: Masaomi is a transfer student to Japan, ready to struggle his way through learning a new language when a saviour comes in the form of a shoddy-English-speaking Mikado. AU, language barrier
1. Chapter 1

**Written for the durarara kink meme! **

**Original prompt:Masaomi/Mikado - Language barrier, orientation issues, Love at first sight, Fluff~**

**Masaomi is a transfer student from America and his japanese is basically non-existent. So when he finally settles in and starts attending Raira Academy the teachers have him shown around by the top student at the Academy Mikado Ryugamine, whom sadly is not that skilled in speaking english but his english is the best out of all the other students so he was choosen to help Masaomi get accustom to everything. Masaomi finds himself instantly falling for the shy, polite teen whom tries pretty hard to be the best of assistance to him. Mikado on the other hand only thinks of Masaomi as an acquaintance at first and Masaomi realizes that he'll have to work his way into the teens heart. I know this might make it a long fill but I like when things move slowly, so if A!A would not mind?**

**Disclaimer: in my profile. I do not own Durarara or anything to do with it. I don't even own this plot ^.^;**

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><p>"Ah…konnichiwa – I mean, ohayogozaimasu!" Masaomi gulped quietly as he looked upon all the curious eyes staring at him. His anxiety was making him stumble through his Japanese – as if it wasn't shoddy enough already. "Watashi wa Kida Masaomi desu…yoroshikuonegaishimasu!" Masaomi sped through the rest of the sentence – his usual bravado trampled by the language barrier – and ducked his head down, hoping the teacher would let him sit soon. The turtle-like man in question was giving him an odd look – his pronunciation was probably terrible, he learned it all a week earlier by flipping through an EnglishJapanese children's picture book – then said something in spitfire Japanese that made the students nod in understanding or whisper between themselves. He caught 'foreigner' in there somewhere, but for all he knew they could've been saying 'dumbass'.

The teacher ('sensei', Masaomi reminded himself) pointed to an empty desk somewhere in the middle of the rows of desks, and Masaomi quickly walked over, swerving past a few long legs before quickly plummeting into his seat, hands clutched tightly on the strap of his messenger bag, the only familiar thing in this room aside from him.

Everything was new here. His clothes (a uniform, boring and pale and severely less creative than free dress at his old school), his home (an apartment with no backyard), and his school (a drone-filled concrete block with hardly any posters on the wall, and probably no school plays).

Masaomi fiddled with the pins on his well-loved bag in thought. They all had band names or catch phrases from television shows, all in English, and probably rare here overseas. Had any of these people ever even heard of David Bowie? Beyoncé? Lady Gaga? Masaomi wanted to let out a whopping sigh and let his head fall heavy onto the desk before him, but refrained if only to protect a small scrap of his remaining pride.

The teacher said something that completely passed over Masaomi's head. He needed to learn to stop tuning out things he didn't understand – it's how he failed Spanish class all those months ago, anyway.

"Ah…hello…" Masaomi looked up at the sudden familiar exclamation in his first (and only) language. He turned his head to his right, where a slight boy with a kind smile was giving him a minute wave. His blue eyes were wide and naive, set into an open face with an innocence that would never last a day back home.

"Hi?" the blonde replied, confused, though warmth was bubbling up in his chest with the hope that maybe this wouldn't be all bad.

"My name is Ryuugamine Mikado. Yamato-sensei ask me is your…leader." The boy's unsure tone at the last word made a wide smile split on Masaomi's face. He wasn't perfect with English, but he was clearly the best speaker in this room.

"You mean guide?"

Mikado nodded quickly with a bright, "Hai!"

Masaomi wanted to ask this boy more, the black-haired-blue-eyed cutie who had already turned back to face the front and take notes in what the blonde could see was perfectly neat printing. He settled for trying to make sense of the lesson while taking occasional (okay, frequent) glances back at Mikado.

Back in America, Masaomi was pretty popular with the girls and boys. He was half British and half Japanese from his mum and dad. Having blonde hair paired with a hint of Asian features was enough to look temptingly exotic, and sometimes he slipped into a British accent like a new pair of shoes.

Here he had hoped it would be similar. After all, last he checked there wasn't exactly an abundance of natural blondes strolling Ikebukuro's streets. Maybe his popularity would be just as explosive here?...No. He could hardly speak to anyone, let alone tell them his crazy stories that always had all his American friends laughing and joking along with him. Plus, there wasn't exactly a blooming gay community around here, as far as he could see.

He figured it was dad's fault that he had to endure this kind of cruel and unusual torture (and by the way, didn't that entitle him to refugee status?). It was his fault that he chose a job opportunity across the whole freakin' Pacific Ocean with almost no warning, effectively ripping Masaomi away from the city where he was raised and planting him down in a new place with no instruction.

Masaomi already missed the lights and sounds of New York. Maybe it was too romanticized and dreamy of him, but he found a sense of wonder in Times Square, spinning and beholding the sheer grandeur of the walls around him, the crowds of people, tourists and natives alike, and could almost believe that everyone in the world might be just as small and human as he was. In the hustle and bustle of New York, he could pretend to be anyone he wanted. He could have breakfast at Tiffany's and throw a ball around in Central Park and hail a cabby like a real city rat.

But here everything was different. Words weren't spelt in the alphabet he had known since kindergarten. They were made of lines with no meaning, dashes and squiggles and curves that looked more like pictures than words. Traffic was crazy and there were just so many people, even more than New York – something that was altogether hard to believe and terrifyingly overwhelming. All he knew about Japan was that it was the source of those funny comics full of girls with giant boobs and all the crazy weird stuff you'd see on the internet.

And maybe Masaomi was being naïve, but he'd always hoped to go to some big name university. Despite what most people believed, what with the careless way he seemed to approach schoolwork and the abundance of time spent horsing around with friends instead of studying, he was actually a good student. Great, in fact. While his friends aimed for small art schools or considered dropping out, Masaomi was browsing the websites of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. He filled his resume with summer jobs and volunteer work with inner city kids, even took advanced classes some years.

Now the dream was pretty much lost. His grades would plummet when he couldn't even communicate, and all of that hard work to maybe get somewhere without the help of his father's big name would be wasted.

Masaomi was jerked back into reality by a gentle tap on his shoulder. Mikado was standing beside his desk, smiling down at him with a box wrapped in some sort of handkerchief. The blonde was struck with how adorable Mikado looked, standing there with his bashful smile and pink-dusted cheeks that he had frozen for a moment in his mind. The feeling was familiar to Masaomi – he wasn't some cliché movie character who couldn't recognize love when they saw it. He'd fallen in love before, but never so quickly. The cheeky teen wasn't about to brush this off as nothing. He was open to anything, including love at first sight, and was known to be loud in his declarations.

But no need to scare the kid right away.

"Kida-kun, it is lunch time." Masaomi realized that Mikado probably wouldn't use contractions any time soon.

"Oh, thanks…uh…Mikado-kun?" He asked hesitantly. He wasn't too certain with honorifics, but Mikado used it with his name so it should be alright…though he couldn't remember if he was supposed to use the last name or first…

Mikado gave him an encouraging nod paired with a polite smile, instantly comforting Masaomi and making the familiar warmth spread through his chest again. He reached into his pack and grabbed his lunch, self-packed and dumped into a plastic bag like always, before being led by Mikado up through a stairwell and a door, something Masaomi thought was odd. Back home he usually just ate on the front steps, and sometimes they would play chicken by running across the road and trying not to get hit by cars. When the door opened, a cool breeze hit Masaomi in the face and he stepped out onto the rooftop of the school. His eyes widened – the roof at his old school was strictly gang territory – and watched as Mikado walked over to a small bench next to the tall fence that bordered the area, probably to combat suicidal teenagers jumping.

Masaomi followed and sat beside the smaller teen who was much too kind and cute and endearing. He watched as the fabric surrounding Mikado's lunch was untied, giving way to a small kit with rice and other little bits of food he didn't recognize. It was a lot fancier than anything Masaomi could make – he once burned pancakes, unable to flip them and letting them roll over in the pan until they greatly resembled fried turds.

The door opened again, its creak echoing slightly in the quiet air, and Masaomi turned to see a girl peer through then begin walking towards them. She was petite and slim, with glasses and choppy hair and HOLY SHIT THE BIGGEST RACK– Masaomi cleared his own thoughts with an internal smack and tried to look somewhat friendly even as his eye started to twitch.

"Anri-chan!" Mikado waved at the girl, and she sat at the other side of him on the bench. Her polite smile and quiet demeanour already told Masaomi that she was nothing like his old friends, who were either obnoxiously loud guys who kept strings of condoms in their back pockets or girls who spent more time spraying their hair than reading the textbooks.

"Anri-chan," Mikado said, and the rest was a string of Japanese that Masaomi didn't even try to translate. He heard his name somewhere in the jumble, and knew that Mikado had introduced him. Despite this, he held out his hand and repeated his introduction in broken Japanese, because even though he wasn't raised right he'd seen enough to know how to act it.

"My name is Sonohara Anri. It is nice to meet you, Kida-kun."

"You too…Anri-chan." He knew enough about honorifics to know that what he said wasn't correct and he should've been using something more formal around someone he'd just met, but he'd always been one to test his boundaries, push and push until he could barely nudge before things fell apart.

Apparently he was allowed to slip up, since he was only just learning the language. Anri just gave him a smile and a small shrug then leaned away to open her own lunch kit, even tidier and cuter than Mikado's – was it just him, or were those sausages shaped like octopi?

He suddenly felt inferior to their lunches that were practically Van Gogh paintings and opened up his own abstract Picasso: a convenience store sandwich (one of the many he kept from back home), a juvenile juice box, and an apple.

Just as the blonde took a bite into his deli meat delight, Mikado said something to Anri in Japanese that made her giggle charmingly. Masaomi couldn't help but take a more forceful bite than intended, teeth joining in an almost-audible clack, as he suddenly realized that Anri might not just be a friend. What if they were going out?

No. No, Masaomi had seen 'going out' before, bombarded with it every day in fact, and he could tell they weren't. Her lunch box was placed right in between them, a measure of distance that told him they weren't together. It was odd how they weren't sitting closer, actually. At home even friends would sit on each other's laps or lean on each other, arms wrapped platonically around shoulders and legs splayed across laps. The lack of interaction was a little off-putting, though maybe it was just these two and their polite and quiet personalities.

_I'll be the one to fix that_, Masaomi thought smugly. He'd never been terribly touchy-feely, what with the kind of family he grew up with, but he'd been known to hang off of those he admired, enjoying getting close to them and sometimes overwhelming them with his intimacy.

_This would be a good time, actually, _Masaomi realized. _Stake my claim and all that._

He set down his sandwich and pulled back slightly, then pounced next to Mikado and wrapped his arms around the boy's small (adorable!) shoulders. The black-haired boy instantly jumped in response, his face flushing pink as he struggled in shock.

"K-Kida-kun!" He paused, probably trying to translate in his head, "Not how greet people in Japan!"

"Oh, really? Sorry," Masaomi grinned, releasing Mikado from his grip and sitting back down. "Back home we're all like that."

Mikado stared at him with wide eyes. "Kowai…"

Masaomi laughed at his expression. _He's so cuuuute! _"Don't worry, it's not always without warning."

Mikado looked confused, and Masaomi realized he shouldn't have used a double negative. "I mean: don't worry, there's usually warning."

Mikado gave a nod of understanding, and Masaomi found himself wondering how many words the boy could actually pick out of the sentence. Obviously more than the blonde could pick from a Japanese sentence, anyways. He'd never had a relationship with a language barrier.

But Kida Masaomi never backs down.

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><p><strong>AN: I'm sorry that this first chapter is a little rocky. It gets better in the next ones, I promise! This chapter is mostly about introspection and Masaomi's all moody about moving, so it's not terribly happy to read.<strong>

**Also, I'm sorry if Mikado's language shortcomings seem unrealistic. I'm sort of trying to compare it to my knowledge of French (okay but not fantastic), how I sometimes drop a few little words in a sentence or use a few words to describe what I'm trying to say since I don't know the exact single word (ex. sing at the karaoke bar vs. sing at the drink building for shows), and how difficult verbs and their forms can be for me.**

**Parts of this are gonna get very angsty and real, because I like to write about orientation issues (seeing as I have dealt with them and continue to, so I can relate). It won't be completely about that, but it will come up several times as a bit of a reality check.**

**Also, if anyone would like to see any situations or plot points, let me know and I will try to incorporate them! ^w^**

**Edit: 23/07/11, fixed 'kowaii' to 'kowai' :S Whoops! Thanks to Tears Parallel for the correction!**


	2. Chapter 2

"Mum, dad, I'm home," Masaomi exclaimed out of ironic habit as he stepped inside, shutting the apartment door behind him and dropping his bag near the cramped door. He nearly tripped when he walked forward, remembering just in time that his new home had a small step up from the entryway. He carefully tip-toed over it then continued on his way, shedding his blazer and tie as he traversed the short distance toward the kitchen.

"Yeah, dad, I'd love some orange juice. Chips? Sure. Just what I need after a long day of school." Masaomi poured himself a glass as he spoke flatly, then reached into an upper cupboard to grab the bag of spicy kettle chips, placed mistakenly among a few pans and a ladle in the flurry of moving in yesterday.

"Dinner smells great. I'll make us some tea later," he drawled to the empty air, tone growing more and more sarcastic with each word. "Earl Grey or Oolong?"

He dropped a box of Earl Grey carelessly onto the countertop, peeling off his socks before heading to his new room, bare feet slapping loudly against the hardwood, echoed in the silence. He made a detour and opened the door of his parents' room, bare save for a bed and empty dresser. Plopping down and ripping open the chip bag simultaneously, he started to eat his dinner of champions – if those champions were poor college students with no cooking experience or funds.

_Close enough_, he thought as he stuffed a handful into his mouth, chomping down on the crispy snacks and staring at the blank wall.

Kida Masaomi didn't like being alone, because whenever he was he couldn't stop reminiscing.

Even now, he could feel the beginnings of a memory with his mother making dinner. He'd been folding haphazard wontons, racing her and her perfectly trim and triangular creations. Eventually, he realized when they went to cook them that he'd forgotten to spread flour on his plate, so that when they pulled up the little wontons their bottoms stuck wetly and ripped away. The two of them laughed later as they ate empty wonton wrappers with boiled meatballs.

The memory itself wasn't what Masaomi hated. It was what followed soon after, the feeling of oppressive hopelessness in knowing that no more of these happy memories would be made ever again.

"That's enough depression for one day," Masaomi said aloud as he pushed himself off the bed, making sure to clean off any crumbs out of habit, and retreated to his new room.

The instant he walked in he felt like he was entering an asylum.

The walls were white, the floors and ceiling and curtains too. All that was missing was the straightjacket – but, oh wait, that was lying outside in the hall, blue and suffocating with 'Raira Academy, KIDA MASAOMI' on the tag.

At least he had a bed. He fell back onto it and grabbed the lonely iPod on the pillow next to his head. "Hello, Death Cab For Cutie." He pressed play and let himself fall asleep…

Only to wake up two hours later like clockwork in time for tea.

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><p>"<em>Masaomi, honey, doesn't Mr. Berry look like he wants some tea too?" A blonde woman with premature crow's feet around her shining blue eyes asked the small boy in front of her with a British lilt to her voice.<em>

"_I'm not a _girl_, mum. I don't need to pour all of my stuffed animals' tea," the six-year-old Kida Masaomi proclaimed indignantly, before picking up the plastic tea pot and tipping its spout into the matching flowered teacup before his teddy bear anyways, who sat watching him with glassy black eyes and a confused stitched mouth between tufts of fur._

"_There's a good boy. Now, how was school today?" Masaomi's mum inquired, leaning forward on her elbows with a small smile and a sip of tea._

_Masaomi scoffed, looking away from embarrassment but plopping down into the chair parallel anyways. "Stupid. Everyone is stupid."_

"_Oh, honey, what happened?"_

"_Nothing!" Masaomi exploded. "All I did was kiss Harry on the cheek! And all of a sudden everyone was singing that stupid song about sitting in a tree and that we were gross and we shouldn't do that – and what is that song about anyway I mean who kisses in trees except monkeys and I'm definitely not a monkey because I can talk and everything!"_

_The blonde woman laughed, a tinkling sound that spellbound Masaomi and seemed as delicate and lively as a set of wind chimes. "Don't listen to them, honey. It doesn't matter, as long as Harry didn't mind."_

_Masaomi pouted and crossed his stubby arms. "Well, he said it was okay before but then when everyone made fun of us he said it was all my idea and that I was creepy!"_

_With a small frown, Masaomi's mother sighed, "Sometimes, Masaomi, people won't be what we hope they will. And we can't control that. It's how _you _decide to handle it that changes the outcome."_

_His nose wrinkled. "That makes no sense."_

_A laugh. "Don't worry, Masaomi. You'll understand someday. For now, let's keep this a secret from daddy, yes?"_

"_Sure," Masaomi shrugged, missing his mother's fondly sad expression as he reached for another biscuit._

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><p>"Hey, Mikado-kun!" Masaomi bounded into the classroom, instantly halting early-morning conversation and gaining all eyes on him (as if his hair didn't do that already). "Ohayogozaimasu!"<p>

"Sorry, my pronunciation probably sucks," the blonde laughed as he rubbed the back of his neck. Mikado nodded and smiled, a gesture that Masaomi recognized as 'not-understanding-but-pretending-I-do'.

"Nevermind. Anyways, I'll try to word this better…" he put a dramatic finger to his chin in thought. "Uh…where can I learn Japanese?"

"…At school," Mikado replied, a little confused and probably shocked at Masaomi's stupidity.

"No, no, no, I don't mean like that!" Masaomi sighed. "Uh…I don't know Japanese. Can you teach me?"

"Ah…" Mikado looked away, discomfort plain on his face.

"I'm a fast learner!" Masaomi said, clasping his hands together in a begging motion as he slammed his elbows on to the smaller boy's desk, ignoring the painful jolt to his funny bones. "Please! I mean, Onegaishimasoo!"

Apparently his desperation was clear enough in his voice, even if Mikado might not have understood all of his words. More than a little startled, Mikado shouted quickly as hastily leaned away, "Yes! I teach you!"

"Ahhhh! Thank you so much! Very arigato or whatever!" Mikado bent quickly at the waist in some form of a quick bow, his shaggy hair brushing against the edge of the desk and nearly banging into it. Mikado quickly slipped his palms over the surface before Masaomi could bend again.

"Please stop, Kida-kun! Danger!" Masaomi found himself grinning at both the concern from his classmate (friend?) and his adorable stunted English.

"Thank you so much! I brought a workbook. We'll start at lunch, yeah?"

"Ah…hai."

Masaomi beamed as he flounced away, leaving Mikado deeply confused with the sudden personality change from the mostly-solemn boy of yesterday.

Things were looking up.

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><p>"Oh hey, I know that!" Masaomi shouted out in delighted surprise, pointing at the small characters on the page. "Those are the numbers!"<p>

Mikado perked up instantly. "You know this?"

"Yeah, totally! I mean my dad taught me a bit once…" He squinted, pretending he was trying to remember when really he just wanted to change the subject without sounding suspicious. "Numbers. Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyuu, juu!"

Mikado gave a little gasp of awe and an elated smile spread across his face. "Good!"

"Thanks," Masaomi grinned, then jolted. "I mean, arigato!"

"Do itashimashite. Testing now. Four?"

"Shi!"

"Juu?"

"Ten!"

"Shichi?"

"Seven!"

Mikado sat back with a satisfied nod, convinced that Masaomi hadn't simply memorized the line of numbers and not their meanings out of order.

"Yes. Basics," Masaomi exclaimed. He pointed to his chest. "Watashi."

Masaomi pointed to himself. "Watashi. Me?"

"Hai!" He pointed to Masaomi. "Omai."

"Omai. You."

"Hai!"

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><p>"Onegaishimasu."<p>

"Iie. Oh-neh-guy-shee-mas."

"Oh, I get it! I was saying the 'u' wrong. Heeee~"

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><p>"Sorry."<p>

"Gomennasai."

"Goodbye."

"Sayonara!"

"I will be back."

"Ittekimasu."

"I'm back."

"Tadaima."

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><p>"Hey, Mikado-kun, how do you say 'you're super cute and adorable and I want to hug you till your guts squish out'?"<p>

"…"

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><p>"Sayonara," Mikado exclaimed as he, Anri, and Masaomi reached their split-up point after school that day.<p>

"Goodbye," Masaomi replied abruptly on instinct, before realizing a split second later that the boy was actually saying goodbye and not testing his Japanese. "Whoops. I mean, sayonara, Mikado-kun."

Anri gave a little giggle. "Sayonara, Ryuugamine-kun, Kida-kun."

The two boys waved goodbye as she walked away, melting into the crowd. Masaomi turned to Mikado. "Arigato, Mikado-kun. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Hai. Arigato, Kida-kun. Sayonara."

Mikado turned and walked a few steps, then whirled back around to see Mikado leave. And he watched until the small boy was completely out of sight.

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><p>"Wait, we're doing <em>English<em>?" Masaomi jumped up from his desk dramatically, jaw dropped as Mikado handed out the workbooks like a good little class rep. The American could've cried with joy when he saw the familiar alphabet splayed across the page to form the words 'ENGLISH WORKBOOK'.

"Please sit, Kida-kun," Mikado replied tiredly. He was the only one in the class capable of even slightly taming the blonde ball of energy that was Masaomi. Even the teacher just sat back as the boy took the responsibility into his own hands.

"Sorry, Mikado-kun. This is exciting!" He practically bounced in his seat as he flipped the thick workbook open, landing on the first page that explained nouns, verbs, and adjectives in Japanese and English.

"Wow…I did this in, like, Grade Two," he said, sitting back in his chair and bringing the book with him as he flipped through. None of it was particularly taxing. Masaomi had spent a whole year in elementary school studying mainly grammar. By now he had a firm grasp on the English language, it being one of his best subjects.

The teacher stood and said something in rapid-fire Japanese ("Not that fast," Mikado had said to him after he had complained loudly about the speed. "You only need learn.") and then said, for the benefit of Masaomi, "Up to Chapter Six due tomorrow."

"Pfffft!" Masaomi laughed behind his fist. "Oh man, this is gonna be a piece of cake!"

He leaned forward and flipped back to the first page, blowing the non-existent dust from his mechanical pencil dramatically before beginning to scribble quickly in the notebook, circling verbs in sentences and telling the difference between the different forms of 'there/their/they're'.

By the time class was almost over he had finished up to Chapter Ten and was just getting into conjunctions. He felt a small tap on his forearm, and turned to see Mikado glancing at him shyly.

"Ano…Kida-kun, help?"

He paused for a moment, surprised that Mikado was asking him for help for once, then burst into a beam. "For sure!"

And maybe it wasn't the most glamorous first date, _but it's a start_, Masaomi found himself thinking as he leaned across the aisle to explain the difference between 'whose' and 'who's' to the curious boy next to him

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><p><strong>AN: Masaomi's apartment is quite big and mostly western-style (his dad is rich) and most of the furniture is brought over from America, explaining why he has a bed instead of a futon.<strong>

**AND! DOES ANYONE KNOW THE NAMES OF ANY SUPER FAMOUS JAPANESE IDOLS/SINGERS/ACTORS? It comes up later in this story and I tired searching Wikipedia but the list is just soooo loooonnngg TT^TT I only know Korean idols from my friends -_-**

**EDIT: 23/07/11 Changed the 'nee' in onegaishimasu pronunciation to 'neh'. Again, correction of Tears Parallel! That was a silly mistake of mine. I type too fast :S**


	3. Chapter 3

Although days could be long and tiring in a place where he didn't know the language, Masaomi could still learn to appreciate the simple activities that didn't involve mental exertion.

Namely, Phys Ed.

He'd always loved gym class. No matter how much he (admittedly; grudgingly) enjoyed regular classes, it was always freeing and exuberating to be able to slip on a gym strip and just run wild for an hour.

Running. Ah, it was nice to know that even though most everything else had changed, running was still a constant, even across the ocean. The class was started off by ten laps around the field, something Masaomi embraced with elation as he took the lead, lulled into calm by the rhythmic slap of his sneakers against the track and the breeze whipping through his hair.

He'd always loved running the most. His shrink said it was because of his subconscious desire to 'run away' from all his problems, to ignore the real issues in his life and just escape. Masaomi said it was because of his reoccurring dream involving being chased by Velociraptors that were constantly shouting, "Harry and Masaomi sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

Whatever the reason, he was comforted instantly by the growing burn in his chest and the constant lifting and dropping of his feet, leaving the rest of the pack and their heavy panting behind as he pulled farther and farther ahead.

When class was over, Mikado caught up to him, wheezing and gasping unevenly while Masaomi caught his breath in calm gulps of air. He stopped beside the boy, hands grasping his knees as he bent over, face flushed and sweaty. "How…how did…you are very fast!"

Masaomi let out a slightly breathless laugh as he helped Mikado up by his shoulder and walked them both towards the changing room to grab a drink of water. "I've been running ever since I was young."

Mikado shook his head, gasps growing quieter and farther apart. "No only practice. You are talented."

"Uh…thanks," Masaomi replied, shrugging as Mikado bent over at the water fountain and gulped heavily from the stream. He gestured to the taller boy once he'd had his fill, and minutes later they were fully changed and heading off to the last class of the day.

"…Kida-kun?"

"Hai?" Masaomi replied, trying to exercise his juvenile Japanese as often as possible.

"Japanese at park?"

"You mean…after school?" Masaomi felt excitement bubbling under his collar bone, buttery and sunny and swiftly expanding.

"Ah…hai. Practice Japanese and English."

"Of course! Yes! Hai! Hai, hai, hai!" Masaomi beamed, bouncing down the hall. "That sounds perfect!"

"Hai. We go when school end."

"Definitely! Yeah!" Masaomi beamed.

Oh yes, things were certainly looking up.

* * *

><p>"Uh, okay, no. Iie. It's 'voh-cab-you-larry'."<p>

"Ah, hai. Voh-cab-yoo-leary?"

Masaomi waved his hand dismissively, smiling at the boy whose cheeks were pink with embarrassment over his botched pronunciation. "That's good enough. You make a lot more sense than anyone in New Jersey."

"Nani?"

"Uh… Nevermind."

"Kida-kun, domo arigato."

"Huh?" Masaomi tilted his head to the side for a moment. "Oh! I get it! Like Mr. Roboto." Masaomi cleared his throat, a sound that preceded a show of his singing 'talents' and usually had anyone who knew him within a mile radius fleeing for their lives. "Domo arigato misuta Robotto, mata au hi made~!"

"Ah…" Mikado grimaced, leaning away slightly on the bench, ears ringing.

"My dad loves that song." Masaomi winced. "But you probably haven't heard of it. Anyways, the next part goes like –"

Mikado butted in before Masaomi could sing another word. "Kida-kun! Eat now?"

Masaomi raised a brow when he checked his cell time. "At four o'clock?"

"Hai! I know good place." Mikado quickly packed up his school things, Masaomi following his lead and pulling his bag back over his shoulder.

He heard it before he saw it. A loud, deep voice saying something along the lines of, "Good sushi! _Somethingsomething_ sushi! Good!" At least the simple Japanese allowed some words to be picked out by the English-speaking teen.

"Ah! Mikado! _Somethingsomethingsomething_," the man who owned the voice said as the two boys reached him. Masaomi was instantly struck by the man's appearance: tall as a tree, with deep set eyes and skin like burnt chocolate. He was dressed in clothes unfamiliar to Masaomi, a rope tied around his head.

"Simon-san, _something _eat." Mikado smiled up at the man, who nodded and waved them inside the door. Mikado (thankfully) ordered for them, and answered all of Simon's questions; Masaomi was still too shocked by such an out-of-place man in the middle of Ikebukuro to introduce himself.

When the sushi arrived, it wasn't what Masaomi had been expecting. Back in New York, he'd had simple California rolls and strips of salmon on cubes of rice, typical sushi. The sushi here was filled with all sorts of odd ingredients he'd never even seen before, much less tasted. One was even bubbling! And sure, he wasn't that well-versed in Japanese culture, but wasn't sushi supposed to be served cold?

"No worry, Kida-kun. Good taste," Mikado said with a smile, and how could anyone turn down a face like that?

Ask Masaomi later and he would tell you the only reason he enjoyed the sushi and continued to return years later was because of his former diet of chips, juice, and tea. _Anything _would taste good after that for two weeks straight. But in truth, the exotic textures and mixtures were intriguing to Masaomi, who'd lived the majority of his life prior eating take-out from a new restaurant every day. The closest he got to cooking after he realized touching the stove would end in disaster was waiting to scoop the Chow Mien into an actual bowl instead of leaving it in the styrofoam container before digging in.

(He'd pretty much lived alone for eleven years, after all.)

"Domo arigato, Simon-san," Mikado exclaimed as the man waved goodbye.

"Sayonara," Masaomi said quickly, still trying to feel for the way the foreign language rolled on his tongue, slow and clunky compared to Mikado's graceful lilt.

"Arigato, Mikado-kun. It was tasty."

A small nod. "You are welcome."

"Sayonara, Mikado-kun," Masaomi waved as Mikado began to walk away, waving as well.

"Sayonara! I see you tomorrow! Teach honorifics!"

Masaomi grinned, something as simple as a promise for tomorrow making happiness permeate his insides. "Hai."

* * *

><p>The beauty of the weekend was that Masaomi could stay at home, close his eyes, and pretend for a moment like he was back home and everything was as it should be.<p>

He spent the morning surfing the internet (ignoring any social networks because he was definitely not in the mood to hear about all his friends' marvellous school days and inside jokes that he used to be a part of). He checked the New York Times, dabbled around on some porn sites, and stared at old photos of him in kindergarten, when he had a smile big as half his face and a sunny personality bursting at the seams.

After cracking open a second bag of chips, Masaomi figured it was time to get out somewhere and buy some real food. Since he wasn't too sure about using credit cards here, he took out a several bills and coins from the stash in one of the kitchen drawers (sent by his father's assistant and kept stocked by her as well) and stuffed them in his wallet, unsure of how much things cost here.

With a tired sigh, he grabbed his keys and walked out the door.

Only to find himself several minutes later at the corner convenience store, staring at a magnificent wall of instant ramen. Some were in cups, some rectangular, some in bowls. They ranged in a plethora of bright, exhaustive colours with print he couldn't understand and pictures of steaming noodles and cartoon mascots. He felt like they were all shouting at him at once.

It didn't help that he couldn't understand what they were saying. Not to mention the prices; was yen the same as dollars? He hoped not, or else it seemed like Japan was a lot more expensive than he thought.

Cautiously, as if afraid all the instant ramen would tackle him if he moved too quickly, Masaomi chose a few of the more discreetly-packaged ones and stuck them in his shopping basket, moving along quickly over to a refrigerated section with little lunches (like the ones Mikado and Anri had) encased in plastic.

_I could use some fresh food, _Masaomi thought, and grabbed a few that looked alright. He moved over to the beverage section and got some canned tea and milk boxes as well. Feeling somewhat curious, he also grabbed a few of what looked like criss-crossed bread buns in plastic wrappers. He figured that was good for the week, and lined up to check out behind an elderly woman. He was just loading on all of his food when a slim, tall man lined up behind him. Masaomi thought it was a little odd, to see a guy wearing mostly black in such a brightly-coloured store, but let it slide because the guy looked like he might be a little dangerous and Masaomi had had enough of danger to last him a lifetime.

"Ohayo," the cashier said robotically as she scanned Masaomi's items.

"Er…Ohayogozaimasu," Masaomi replied, mouth still moving awkwardly around the foreign words. If he looked back, he would've seen the intrigued look on the man's face.

The woman finished scanning and bagging and said something quickly in Japanese, too quickly for him to decipher, though he figured she was probably telling him the price. His eyes darted to the wavering numbers on the screen. ¥3,400.

It was stupid, but as Masaomi began to dig through his wallet he started to feel like someone was watching him. Sure, the cashier lady, but someone else was watching him with a gaze that made him feel like they were sizing him up, inspecting him like bacteria under a microscope.

"Er…gomennasai. Ichi…moment," Masaomi said lamely as he tried to figure out which bills he should give and how much the coins were supposed to be worth. That gaze that raised the hackles on his neck didn't help one bit.

Suddenly, a pale hand dipped quickly into his wallet to grab a few bills and coins then handed them off to the cashier before Masaomi could move an inch. He looked up into the face of the man himself, and a shiver ran up his spine when he noticed that the good citizen had red eyes.

"Uh…arigato."

"It's alright, I know English," he replied, with only a hint of an accent. "I'm Orihara Izaya." He held out his hand to shake, which Masaomi did reluctantly, then shivered again. His fingers were cold.

"I'm Kida Masaomi." He took the bags the woman offered him and walked forward, Izaya following.

"You have an American accent," Izaya noticed with a wicked smile. "I'm guessing you recently moved."

"Yeah," Masaomi replied, somewhat hesitant to share information with this man who, though charismatic, gave him a bad feeling in his stomach.

"May I ask where from?" Izaya smiled kindly as they walked out the doors. He offered, "I'm from a small town in Sapporo."

"Born in Surrey, raised in New York."

Izaya made an interested noise. "How odd, that you would end up here."

Masaomi made a noncommittal noise in his throat as they reached the street corner. He didn't want this guy following him to his apartment, and was planning to cross a series of different roads to shake him off if he decided to follow. Call it paranoia, but you had to be on the ball if you lived alone in a city as big as New York.

"Well, Masaomi, I hope to speak with you again soon. Sayonara."

"Bye," the blonde replied, watching with narrowed eyes as the cheerfully suspicious man walked across the street and melted into the rest of the crowd.

It wasn't until a while later as Masaomi was waiting for his ramen to soak that he realized: Orihara Izaya hadn't bought a thing.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I know it's unhealthy, but one of my dreams is to someday go to Japan and eat lots of instant ramen ^w^ I just love it too much! Especially spicy kimchi kind (which isn't really spicy at all). Too much sodium and all preservatives, but it's addicting!<strong>

**And Izaya is lying. I don't know where he was born so I just said Sapporo, like the beer!**

**Thank you to everyone who has favourited, alerted, and reviewed! It always brightens my day when I see them in my inbox! ^w^**

**Also, I have a new story up! (or if you're reading this right away, I will in 30 minutes). It is a different pairing this time! Now it's Mikado/Masaomi! Such variety! That's why you all come to me, right? ;P**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry for the wait! OTL lj was on the fritz, I got a virus, and then made a stupid password-related mistake that I'd rather not explain for the sake of the last trickles of pride that still remain within me.**

* * *

><p>Sometimes Masaomi looked back on his actions and thought, "Was that really me? Was I really that crazy?" He would wonder how one person could hurl him into such an unfamiliar state of desperate anticipation, so much that he would sprint to the park just to meet them.<p>

But here he was, ignoring the often-suffocated voice of reason in his head and dodging teenage girls on the sidewalks as he darted off towards the park. The annoyed exclamations and curses that followed in his wake did little to slow him down – after all, Mikado had asked him on a date!

(Okay, study session, but they were both going to be alone together talking and having a great time, which was practically the same thing.)

(And no, Masaomi didn't have a penchant for wishful thinking.)

(Really.)

"Mikado-kun!" Masaomi shouted the moment he spotted the boy in question sitting on a familiar bench. He waved his arm in a large swooping motion as he began to run forward. Somehow, Mikado looked even better in the morning light.

"Ohayo, Kida-kun. Shirt…" Kida looked down, only to see that in his haste to leave the apartment quickly after Mikado's call he'd pulled on his t-shirt backwards.

"Oh…whoops!" Masaomi pulled his arms from the holes and switched the shirt around, so that now the writing was on the front.

"What is on shirt?" Mikado pointed to the word 'BIG' printed on the cotton, right above the silhouette of a rooster.

"Er…" Masaomi hummed awkwardly as Mikado squinted.

"Big…bird?"

"Yeah! Totally. Big bird. Ahahaha…" he laughed lamely then said, "It doesn't matter. What are we learning today?"

"Ah! Japan culture. Come," Mikado said, leading them towards the train station. _This explains the phone call, _Masaomi thought back to Mikado's request not to bring anything. _He sounded so cute and flustered on the phone, ahhh!_

"So where are we going? A shrine or something?" Masaomi mused over the idea of visiting a spiritual place when he had only been to his parents' bible study once, where the kids just watched episodes of VeggieTales in the basement with cheese and crackers while the adults had wine upstairs as they went through bible passages. Masaomi started a fight with one of the other boys right away for saying he was a poopy head, and was henceforth banned from the community church. Oh well. They would've kicked him out eventually anyways a few years later.

"Iie. Watashi-tachi wa, manga-ya ni iku sa rete imasu," the boy replied as he checked both ways and stepped into the street.

"Er...something about a manga shop?" Masaomi replied. "Wait – my culture lesson is going to a manga store?" He was starting to doubt Mikado's credibility. Of course, Masaomi held the utmost adoration and respect for the smaller boy, but he had to be a little suspicious about how a manga store could tell him more about Japan than a trip to a museum.

"Hai." Masaomi halted for a moment just as Mikado was about to step off the curb. That split second of hesitancy was enough to motivate Mikado's small, warm hand to grasp his and pull him forward. The blonde's thought process moved in slow motion for a moment when he realized that these fingers wrapped around his belonged to the boy he'd fallen in love with. Masaomi wouldn't have blamed a mind reader if they thought he was mentally challenged, since all he could think was _Ohmygoshthat'sMikado'._

It was with a dumbfounded expression that Masaomi was pulled down the remainder of the streets by the smaller boy who was too focussed on taking the right turns to worry about the way the taller boy's brain was frying in his skull and dripping onto his shirt.

The brain cell loss only continued when Mikado pulled him into the manga-store-which-was-totally-not-a-store-but-actually-a-monstrous-Transformer-posing-as-a-store.

It was several floors of brightly-coloured manga volumes stuffed onto ceiling-high bookcases, walls with advertisements and posters plastered to them, some using up several feet. Toys and collectibles were scattered across various shelves, ranging from DVDs to canned bread to action figures to suggestive pillows. Each floor was dedicated to a different type of product. Music from anime soundtracks played overhead. Most people milled around in everyday clothes, but some were clad in strange outfits that could only be classified as cosplay.

"I…whut?" Any normal person would be awestruck and a little bit horrified at the sight before them, but Mikado only smiled at Masaomi's flabbergasted reaction.

"Manga. Big in Japan culture." _No kidding,_ Masaomi thought. _This store could house all the McDonald's in New York._

"So…do you read this stuff?" Masaomi asked as he picked up the nearest volume of Bleach (_Who reads stories about laundry?_) and flipped through without really looking, preferring instead to listen eagerly for the object of his affection's answer.

"Ano…" Mikado made a half/half gesture with his hand, unsure of the correct term in English.

"Sometimes," Masaomi answered his silent question, filing with pride at the thankful smile sent his way.

"Mikado-kun!" The pair turned at the sound of a woman's voice, seeing a lady wearing a black dress and hat walking towards them.

"Konnichiwa! Ogenki desu ka?" She asked as she reached the two of them.

"Genki desu." He turned to Masaomi. "This is Erika-san."

"Ehhh?" The woman suddenly gasped, then said something very quickly that Masaomi couldn't understand. He wished he did – whatever she told him made Mikado blush a bright crimson.

"I-Iie, Erika-san! Wareware wa tada no tomodachidesu!" The woman seemingly ignored the boy's protests, leaning in to leer at the two of them with an expression that was often found on the faces of sexual predators or intense perverts (though the terms weren't mutually exclusive).

"Watashi wa Kida Masaomi desu. Konnichiwa," Masaomi introduced himself politely, though the spark in her eyes didn't do anything to calm his suspicions of her.

"Ah! Watashi wa Karisawa Erika desu. Nihongo o hanashimasu ka?" _Okay, so her name is Erika Karisawa. But…what is she asking? _Masaomi did what he had been doing ever since he arrived in Japan and was faced with this situation: smiled and nodded.

"Ah! Kare wa nihongo o hanasu koto wa arimasen," Mikado said quickly, which made Erika laugh.

"Kare o ikashite, hai?" Erika teased.

"I-Iie, Erika-san!" Masaomi wished he could've understood why Mikado's face lit up as red as Rudolph's nose. Not for the first time, Masaomi felt like the only person who wasn't in on the big inside joke called life.

"Nani ga okite iru no?" Another voice chipped in, this time belonging to a man with light brown-blonde hair and a wide grin. Masaomi had to glance down at the manga in his hands to one of the white-haired characters, who seemed to match this guy to a T, then shuddered.

Mikado handled repeating all the introductions while Masaomi watched an otaku dressed in an orange jumpsuit and wig walk up the stairs with the curiosity usually associated with newborns or puppies.

"Kida-kun, sushi?" Mikado asked the distracted teen, who whipped around instantly at the sound of his soft voice.

With a vigorous nod, he found himself sitting in a van moments later, cramped up beside Mikado (not that he was complaining). He leaned in to take a sniff of Mikado when the van took a particularly sharp turn (vanilla and teenage BO), then righted himself as he was introduced to the fellow passengers.

Two men sat in the front, identified as Togusa and Kadota by Mikado in English. Kadota, the one in the bandana, turned back at the mention of English in the stale air.

"Where are you from?" He said in a heavily-accented lilt, but the perfect grammar was more than Mikado could say for himself.

"Uh…New York, USA."

"That's far away. Why did you decide to move here?"

Masaomi shrugged nonchalantly. "My dad got a job here. The usual."

The conversation trailed off there as they pulled into the back lot of Russia Sushi. Erika and Walker's constant manga talk that created the soundtrack for the van gang was interrupted by Simon's deep, distinctive voice saying, "Shizuo! Back again! Sushi good, yes?"

Walking up to them was a blonde man, tall and wearing weirdly formal clothes. He took out his cigarette for a moment to say, "Oi."

"Konnichiwa, Shizuo-san," Erika chirped.

"Kida-kun, he is Heiwajima Shizuo," Mikado introduced, then did the same for Shizuo in quick Japanese.

What followed was a short conversation between the adults of the group, Mikado smiling happily as he watched the proceedings while Masaomi tried to adjust to the odd feeling of not being in the center of attention anymore.

It probably sounded pitiful, but Masaomi enjoyed being the popular guy. He strived daily to be well-liked among his acquaintances, even as his own family drifted steadily away. Now that he wasn't in his element, only rarely being able to slip on his humorous persona, he felt an emotion akin to when he was little and got lost in the woods behind his house.

Masaomi let out a sigh as he tipped his head back to look at the sky, squinting at the direct sunlight and stupidly tuning out Shizuo's outraged roar of, 'IZAAAAAAYAAAA!" He didn't notice the vending machine flying overhead until it blocked out the sun, making Masaomi jump and trail it with eyes on its journey to smash down into the cratered sidewalk. Any people nearby fled with screams of terror, save the van gang and a few brave or foolish souls. Out from the rubble leapt a widely-smirking man, ruby eyes flashing as he skipped nearer, treating Shizuo's outrage like a joke.

"…Izaya?" Masaomi asked out loud in his confusion. The man in question's grin only grew as he walked lithely over, laying his hand on the younger boy's shoulder.

"Masaomi! Funny seeing you here. I see you've made some new friends!" Izaya gave a friendly wave paired with a cheeky smile to the group behind him.

"Anata wa kare o shitte imasu ka?" Shizuo growled loudly at Masaomi, who could only reply with a questioning look as Izaya laughed.

"Hai, Shizu-chan~! Masaomi and I are best friends," Izaya cackled, enjoying Shizuo's frustration at his misunderstanding of English.

Shizuo let out a roar, choosing combat over argument and sending any birds in the vicinity away into the air. Masaomi watched in undisguised awe as Shizuo tore a stop sign from the ground, leaving a cracked gouge in the concrete. It only vaguely occurred to Masaomi that he should probably move out of the way when he saw Shizuo pull back his arm to hurl the ragged pole at him and Izaya.

It was only when the pole was yards away and Izaya had leapt to the side that Masaomi's adrenaline kicked in and he jumped up into the air with a grimace, the pole continuing its flight below his feet to skid across the street, leaving a long gash in the asphalt.

"Wha…What the hell?" Masaomi landed and looked up at the insane blonde man, who already had another two sign posts in each hand.

The sound of creaking metal and Izaya's delighted laughter filled the air as Shizuo threw all four posts at once, motivating Masaomi to duck and slide out of the way. He caught sight of Izaya dashing around the corner with a malevolent beam on his face, and Masaomi, convinced that Shizuo had some sort of crazy homicidal plan for the both of them, followed.

More angry roars followed them as they ran, Masaomi too preoccupied with taking glances back and running to demand an explanation from Izaya, who was calmly darting through the streets, civilians parting the way for what was clearly a regular occurrence in Ikebukuro. Suddenly, the murderous blonde skidded around the corner, shouting what were probably Japanese expletives into the air as he launched a mailbox at them. Izaya and Masaomi both jumped away at the same time, gracefully landing in tandem a few yards from the dust cloud of destruction.

"Ah, Masaomi! You're quite adept in parkour as well, I can see," Izaya grinned, thrilled at the prospect of unveiling more interesting points of this American boy.

"Yeah, whatever," Masaomi grunted, using his hand to help push himself over the roof of a parked car as he continued running, twisting to look back at Shizuo just as he picked up a much larger stoplight post and swung it like a baseball bat, forcing Masaomi to scrabble up a streetlight and use it to spring himself onto the rooftop of the nearest building, a squat convenience store that Izaya leapt on as well through the aid of the door's overhang.

Masaomi paused to catch his breath, propping himself on his knees as he Shizuo searched for something else to throw below. People took this as a cue to run away, none-too-eager to be the next object to be tossed in Shizuo's blind rage. He took off to the next street over to grab something, and Masaomi fell to his bottom with a large sigh as he gasped in air like a drowning man. Izaya sat calmly beside him, letting his legs hang over the edge of the roof as he watched the younger boy.

"What," _gasp_, "the hell," _wheeze_, "is going on?"

"Shizu-chan is always like that," Izaya grinned. "Isn't it fun?"

"Fun?" Masaomi's breath began to regain its normal pace. "How is he that freakin' strong?"

Izaya leaned back on his hands, looking up at the cerulean sky and answering, "Who knows?"

Scowling at Izaya's unhelpful answer, Masaomi was about to reply with a scathing remark when the blonde Heracles of Ikebukuro appeared from around the corner with a newly-destroyed vending machine carried above his head.

"Ah! There he is," Izaya chuckled as he rose to his feet. He looked over to Masaomi. "Don't worry about running. He's chasing me, after all."

"Wait, what?" Izaya gave Masaomi a happy-go-lucky salute before leaping away quickly across more rooftops, soon out of sight even as the sounds of their brawl rang out for blocks.

"What a jerk. He couldn't tell me all of that _before _I put in all that effort?" Masaomi frowned, though the quick beating of his heart and excitement running through his veins said otherwise. He'd forgotten the exhilaration of leaping from such high heights and thinking on his feet for the purpose of self-preservation.

_Stop that,_ Masaomi knocked the tempting thoughts from his head. _You've had enough trouble to last a lifetime._

Trouble, of course, was the reason he'd learned parkour in the first place.

"Kida-kun!" Masaomi looked down at the mention of his name. Waving up at him from the sidewalk was Mikado, the van gang nowhere to be seen. His eyebrows were slanted in worry as he shouted out his friend's name again.

Masaomi smiled at his friend's fear for him. Somewhere far away, there sound of a building crumpling. Standing and shaking out his limbs, Masaomi gripped the lip of the roof and hopped down onto the edge of the overhang, then dropped down softly in front of Mikado. He wasn't usually one to brag about his skills, since the roots of his parkour training weren't particularly pleasant and he didn't enjoy recalling them.

"Waaaah! Kida-kun is very good!" Mikado looked up at his friend in awe, and Masaomi couldn't help but up the bravado with a smug grin and some blasé gestures.

"Oh, it was nothing! It's easy for me!" Masaomi winced as he remembered the beginner scratches and broken bones.

"Gomen nasai, Kida-kun. Sore wa yoso-gaideatta." Mikado bowed quickly, causing a smile to spread across Masaomi's face like hot butter on a strawberry scone.

"No problem. Are we still eating sushi?"

Mikado shook his head. "Iie. Friends watch Shizuo-san and Izaya-san."

"I guess it's really fun to watch."

An uninterested shrug. "No. Fight often."

"Wow…what did Izaya ever do to be treated like that?"

Mikado shook his head to show he didn't know. Then, "Kida-kun, you Izaya-san friend?"

"No! He speaks English really well. We met at the store yesterday." Masaomi shrugged. "He's crazy, but he's kinda the only person I can fully talk to, I guess."

Mikado frowned at his friend's words, then clenched his fists in determination that Masaomi could only watch with the rapid inflation of the 'Mikado Cute-O-Meter'. He was quickly encroaching on the territory of 'Can't-Handle-The-Adorable-Brain-Will-Explode!'

"I help Kida-kun! Try hard! Ganbaritai!"

Masaomi smiled at the resolve in Mikado's eyes.

"Ganbatte."

* * *

><p><strong><em>Watashi-tachi wa, manga-ya ni iku sa rete imasu<em>. We are going to a manga shop.**

**_Wareware wa tada no tomodachidesu! _We are just friends!**

**_Nihongo o hanashimasu ka? _Do you speak Japanese?**

**_Kare wa nihongo o hanasu koto wa arimasen. _He does not speak Japanese.**

**_Kare o ikashite, hai? _Taking advantage of him, yes?**

**_Nani ga okite iru no? _What are you talking about?**

**_Anata wa kare o shitte imasu ka? _Do you know him?**

**_Sore wa yoso-gaideatta_. It was unexpected.**

**_Ganbaritai, Ganbatte_. I want to do my best, Do your best.**

**I'm working on having this fic rely on translations by having the gist explained in the following dialogue, but for things like Erika's conversation with Mikado there's no way around it T.T**

**I would like to thank all of you for your kind words, and especially those with constructive criticism! It's really nice how so many of you are aiding me in my Google Translate Japanese XD**

**So I've planned the basic plot (though I go into chapters at first with no idea of what I'll write, since I only plan pivotal moments, festivals, etc.) and I've realized that this story is gonna be pretty loooong. I hope you're all in for the long haul!**

**Enjoyed? Review! \(^w^)/**


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next few days, Mikado and Masaomi created a system. Every other lunch, Mikado would teach Masaomi Japanese, Masaomi teaching him English for the others. After school every other day Masaomi would help Mikado with gym training, unless there was a test to study for. They took turns on Saturdays instructing the other in the ways of their culture, Mikado showing Masaomi the wonders of Japan, Masaomi telling Mikado about America and Britain. In the free time they would hang out as a trio with Anri.

Masaomi was a little unused to the scheduling of his free time, but for the sake of his grades and Mikado's effort (he had presented the schedule on Monday morning with the same determined blue eyes as the day before), he kept to it.

It was on one of the culture days, when Masaomi sat with his friend in the park recounting stories (with printed pictures) of various fried goods bought at festivals, when he saw it.

He'd just been showing Mikado a picture of a glass of fried coke when the sound of a motorbike rang out in the air. He looked up, only to see a woman wearing a full-body suit and a yellow helmet pull up beside Mikado. She soon had a cell phone in her hands, and typed something quickly on it then thrust it towards Mikado's face for him to read. The characters were too complicated for Masaomi, and he settled for sitting and watching this odd occurrence.

"Shizuo-san? Iie, Kida-kun wa yoi hitodesu. Kare wa, Shizuo-san o okora seru tsumori wa nakatta." Mikado said, voice tinged with worry that immediately perked the curiosity in Masaomi.

The biker woman typed something else for Mikado to read.

"Hai. Kono gokai o kaiketsu shite itadaki arigatogozaimasu." Mikado gave a small bow to the woman before she slipped the phone away and drove off.

"Didn't know you could drive in the park," Masaomi muttered under his breath. Then, to Mikado, "Who was she?"

"Ah! Kanojo no namae wa Celty desu. Sorry she did not say hello." Mikado smiled apologetically on the woman's – Celty's – behalf.

Masaomi shrugged. "No big deal. Sore wa daijobudesu."

The smaller boy looked uncomfortable for a second, fidgeting with his hands as Masaomi put the last of the fried food pictures together into a folder. "Ano…Kida-kun?"

"Mm?" Masaomi answered absentmindedly, wrapping the plastic folder in its elastic band.

"Be careful…near Shizuo-san."

Masaomi didn't like the tone of his voice, the same kind of hesitant worry that he got from his dad's secretary whenever he asked to speak to his dad, the kind that warned of bad things to come.

But he trusted Mikado.

"…Okay."

* * *

><p>It was an hour later on the Saturday afternoon that was quickly growing overcast when Masaomi sat down for his first anime program <em>ever<em>.

…aside from dubbed shows on weekend mornings way back when, like Pokémon or Dragonball. He didn't consider those to 'count' anyways, because this was the real deal: all in Japanese, animated somewhere in the same country, with the original manga available at his fingertips several blocks away.

He was ready with his newly-made bowl of ramen sitting in front of the tv when the show came on, the opening panning over a girl with hair fanned out over the ground as sparkles floated upwards. The title of the anime was typed in colourful bubbles…he could only read the 'kimi' (you?) before the theme song continued with the same girl walking through multiple patterned backgrounds.

By the time the anime was halfway through, Masaomi was nearly blind from the bubbles and flowers and _oh god SPARKLES _that covered the screen in any instance of romance or friendship. He didn't remember Pokémon being like this!

However, despite the copious amounts of pink and blushing, the show was actually helping his pronunciation. He found himself following along with what they were saying, repeating as if he were listening to an instructional language CD. In no time he knew all of the character's names.

The credits had just begun to fade in and out when someone knocked on the door. Masaomi jumped up, striding over to inch the door open and peek through the crack.

"Dani?"

He swung the door fully open, staring at an older woman with dark brown hair and kind smile standing in the hall. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Masaomi in a familiarly firm grip that had the teen smiling into her shoulder.

"You're wearing the scarf I gave you," Masaomi pointed out, looking at the woollen gray Dolce and Gabbana wrapped around her neck.

"Of course! I wear it all the time, Masaomi," she replied, then put a hand to her hip, the other holding a plastic bag. "Now, are you going to invite me in or not?"

"I suppose…nosey woman," Masaomi rolled his eyes as he stepped aside, though there was a smile on his face.

Dani looked around as she removed her shoes, the door clicking shut behind her. "At least you keep the place clean."

"Well, now that you're not here to help me out…"

Dani took off her coat and scarf, leaving them on the couch and squinting at the television which was now playing another equally-feminine anime with a really tall girl and a short guy. "Is that…a girly anime?" She straightened and put her hands on her hips with a smirk. "Didn't know you watched that kind of stuff."

"Shut up," Masaomi scowled as he snatched the remote from the couch and flipped the channel to the news.

"What the hell is this?" Dani demanded as she held up the empty ramen cup. "Curry ramen? Have you been eating instant ramen this whole time?"

Masaomi rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. "Uh…yes?"

Dani sent him a scathing glare, thrusting her fist out to bop him none-too-gently on his head before grabbing the plastic bag she'd left on the couch and bringing it to the kitchen. "And here I was worried you were taking bad care of yourself," she threw sarcastically over her shoulder.

As she began to pull an assortment of groceries from the bag and stuff them in the fridge, Masaomi's inner voice switched to that of an announcer. _Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of 'Danielle Chang Cooks Your Dinner'! Here now is the woman herself, washing her hands in preparation. What will she make this time? Stay tuned to find out!_

_There she goes! Is that…fresh eggs? Seaweed? I see some chicken stock over there! Looks like she's going to make some seaweed and egg soup! *wild applause* Now the question is what she'll cook to go along with it!_

"Masaomi, fill this with water," Dani said, thrusting a pot towards him. Due to his natural lack of talent for food preparation, his job during Dani's imaginary cooking show was to fill things with water, wash the dishes, and stay out of the way.

Fifteen minutes later, she was stir-frying something that made Masaomi's mouth water after so many days of instant ramen made with a kettle. Sure, having a new flavour each day was interesting, and he was particularly fond of the spicy kimchi version, but at some point he had started to miss home-cooked meals.

"So," she started casually over the noise of the hissing oil, "Your father is worried about you. He asked me to see how you're doing."

Masaomi looked up from where he was leaning on the counter, watching her back. "We both know that's a lie."

A sigh. "As much as you want believe otherwise, your dad does care about you." She glanced back at him, but he was looking away stubbornly.

Rolling her eyes at his childishness, she returned to the food. "How's Japan going?"

"Other than almost getting flattened by cars every day, not understanding a single word people say, and getting chased down by some madman with super strength?" Masaomi ranted. Dani raised a brow at the stir fry. "Fine. Just peachy."

"A madman with super strength?" She asked sceptically, causing Masaomi to point over at the television still playing the news in the living room, showing clips of an angry blonde tossing around street signs and vending machines, sometimes even small people.

"Heiwajima Shizuo?" She said in perfect Japanese.

"You know him?"

"He's only on the news every other day," Dani replied, shuffling the stir fry from the pan like baby ducks into a pond. "They even have a special segment just for him. 'The Monster of Ikebukuro's Daily Destruction Report', or something like that. Load of sensationalized crap, if you ask me."

"Yeah, well, he chased me down about fifty blocks. I had to climb onto the roof of a 7-Eleven just to get away!" Masaomi ranted. "Everyone in this place is insane."

"I bet you not everyone," Dani replied as she gestured Masaomi to set the table.

"…Maybe not."

Dani's mouth split into a grin as she crossed her arms, a knowing glint in her eyes. "I know that look, Kida Masaomi. Who is it this time?"

"Not telling! It's a well-known love fact that if you utter the name of your crush it'll ruin your chances forever!" He cried melodramatically with a grin, plunking two bowls and sets of chopsticks down on the table.

Dani set down two glasses of milk. "That's a load of bull."

Masaomi sent her a warning look. "Really, Dani, I don't want to mess this up."

Her eyes widened for a moment at his candidness, then brows furrowed for a moment as they sat down, Masaomi doling out soup to both of their bowls.

"Fine. But I trust I'll meet this wonder boy someday?"

"Of course; I'll invite you to our wedding," Masaomi winked.

They continued the rest of the meal with light-hearted banter, Masaomi teasing Dani about her mother hen tendencies while Dani replied with digs to his blonde hair and resemblance to a baby chick.

It was when they were washing dishes together (Dani scrubbing, Masaomi drying) that she dropped the bomb.

"Your brother is getting married."

Masaomi almost dropped the dish he was wiping, but caught himself just in time to place it back into the dish rack nonchalantly.

Dani took his silence as the cue to continue. "He gave me the invitation to pass to you. It's going to be in the spring."

She watched him expectantly, but all Masaomi did was put the dish away indifferently. After a long pause of silence, he finally looked up at her and said, "I don't care."

"You know you don't have to pretend around me," Dani said sadly. "I know every part of you."

"You practically raised me." Masaomi said. "He didn't."

"Look, I'll leave the invitation on the countertop. You can choose to read it or not." Dani slipped out the silvery embossed card, made with paper that probably cost more than twenty ramen cups combined.

"I'm not going," Masaomi said coldly as Dani finished up with the dishes.

"Samantha is a perfectly nice woman."

"It's not 'flawless-Christian-volunteer-charity-worker-Miss-Rhode-Island' Samantha that I don't like."

Dani sighed and leaned back against the counter, all the dishes now placed and drying in the rack. She crossed her arms. "It's been years, Masaomi. Don't you think it's time to set aside your immaturity and wish Ryan a happy marriage?"

"_Ryan_? Is that what he calls himself now?" Masaomi scoffed. "I know a Ryouta, not 'Ryan'."

"You'd know if you gave him a call or even sent an e-mail that he cares for you. He's made some mistakes," at this, Mikado rolled his eyes, "but he's willing to fix them."

"What are you, his shrink?" Masaomi snapped.

"Don't give me that," Dani retorted. "I'm not just some groupie you can push around."

Masaomi let out a groan. "I'm sorry! This is just all so stupid! He couldn't even send me the invitation himself!"

"He knew you would've thrown it out the moment you saw it," Dani said. "I may not be your mother, but you know I'm the closest thing you've got."

Masaomi stared at the ground guiltily, silent for a moment. She was right. It was Dani who had taught him to ride a bike, insult bullies, and write essays. She was smack dab in every photo album he had.

"Why do you keep working for him?" Masaomi murmured.

Dani paused in thought. "Your dad isn't the easiest guy to work for. But I'm one of the only ones qualified. Not many people can handle constant travel and speak so many languages. It's why he fired all his past secretaries."

"If I have to be honest to you, you should return the favour." Masaomi called her out. "You don't have to stay just for me, you know. I don't want to be a burden to you, too."

"You're not a burden," Dani said frankly, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. "And I can't just abandon the kid who's practically my son. No one deserves to grow up alone." The fondness in her voice was apparent as she reached over and rested her arm over Masaomi's shoulders.

She took a closer look at him. "Hey, you've gotten taller! You're almost to my shoulder now!"

Masaomi caught up the rapid change in atmosphere, sharing the familiarity with Dani in a sense that they could easily go through the motions in tandem. He smirked. "Yeah, well, I'm sixteen now."

"What's that condescending tone supposed to mean? You're still a kid to me," Dani grinned then her fist thrust forward in a flash to plant a playful noogie onto Masaomi's head.

"Dani!" Kida shouted in a macho manner and not in any way resembling a small girl's scream. He slipped out from her grip quickly.

"Ah! Faster and stronger now too. Soon I won't be able to pin you down!"

"You haven't been able to pin me since sixth grade!"

"Or maybe my surrender was all a dream?"

Masaomi scoffed. "More like you ever pinning me was all a dream."

"Oh, Masaomi," Dani shook her head pityingly, "you've may have improved in combat but not in debate."

"Whatever. How long is your break?"

"Mmm… supposedly for the rest of the day, but who knows with your dad."

"Great! Let's go out, I wanna show you some cool stuff."

"Oh, Kida Masaomi, I'm flattered! But I'm much too old for you," Dani pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, fluttering her eyelashes dramatically.

Masaomi snorted loudly and grabbed her arm, pulling her towards the front door. "Yeah right, ya old coot."

"Wow, Masaomi! Dirty talk already! You're so forceful~!" The two laughed in the doorway as they slipped on their shoes.

A few minutes later they were down on the street, the grey blanket of clouds darkening. "So, where are you taking me, oh chivalrous knight?"

"Well, my ancient hag," Dani gave Masaomi a firm smack on his arm, "I am going to show you the wonders of Japanese vending machines."

"Oh really?" The Chinese-American woman replied, sounding intrigued as he led them across the street.

"There's a really weird one somewhere near here…there!" Masaomi waved his arms in a theatrical gesture, jazz hands included, encompassing the body of a vending machine that sold not drinks, not snacks, but neckties.

"Wow…" Dani stepped closer to peer inside the glass, where various colours and patterns of ties sat in packages ready for the taking.

"Isn't it crazy? And one a few blocks away is all dark during the day, but at night it lights up to sell porn magazines!"

Dani shot him a sharp look. "You haven't bought any, have you?"

"Of course not." Masaomi wrinkled his nose. "They only have girl ones."

The secretary looked back to the vending machine, placing a finger to her chin in thought as her eyes leapt from tie to tie. Finally, she pulled out a few bills and coins and shoved them into the correct slots, pressing a button resolutely. Masaomi watched as one of the packages fell to the flap door, where Dani stuck her hand to pull it out. She turned to face the blonde.

"This is my gift for you," Dani said, holding out a silky golden yellow tie, "to wear to your brother's wedding."

Masaomi stared at it with pursed lips, conflicted between promising something he couldn't and not taking the gift from his most important person. Dani gave him an encouraging smile and took his hand in hers, placing the package on his open palm then guiding his fingers to close around it.

"There you go."

He looked up at her dark brown eyes, swimming with affection as she leaned forward to press a kiss to his forehead. "Wǒ ài nǐ, dìdì."

"Wǒ ài nǐ."

Just then, a muffled, persistent beeping started from Dani's pocket. She sighed, pulling out her phone and peering at the tiny screen. She looked up at Masaomi, but he was already frowning.

"I'm sorry, Masaomi. I'll send you an e-mail," she said regretfully as she slipped her phone back into her pocket.

"I get it. My dad can hardly tie his own shoes, let alone be without his secretary for a few hours," Masaomi grumbled. She sighed at his discontent and ruffled his hair fondly.

"Zàijiàn."

"Bye."

He watched as she walked away, heading towards the main street to hail a cab. One arrived right away, and she slipped in, giving Masaomi one final wave before the shut door was another layer between them and the car drove away.

Just as the yellow taxi pulled out of sight, the first drops of rain plopped onto Masaomi's nose. He wiped them away with a scowl and started to head back amidst the drizzle. But soon enough, the drizzle became full-on rain, and Masaomi found himself cursing his luck as he darted underneath the shelter of a closed storefront, peering out into the street where prepared strangers passed with umbrellas in their hands.

_Well this sucks_, Masaomi thought, feeling positively rotten as he contemplated the pros and cons of running the last few blocks to his apartment in what was becoming an almost violent downpour.

"Kida-kun?" A soft voice reached his ears over the noise of the pounding rain. He turned his head to see Anri, wearing casual clothes and standing under a blue umbrella.

"Anri-chan. Konbanwa."

"You…good?" Her English accent was thick, but Masaomi could appreciate the effort.

He shrugged. Body language was an easier form of communication.

The two of them stood there for a while, staring at each other, rain droplets rolling off of the umbrella.

"You…love Ryuugamine-kun?" Masaomi jumped at the sudden change of subject and the breaking of the rain's calming lull.

"How did you…?" Masaomi took a deep breath. "Hai."

Anri gave a small nod. "Good."

Masaomi wanted to ask what she meant, but of all the questions he had, none of them would come out right in Japanese.

"Ki o tsukete. Mikado wa yoi hitodesu." Her voice was soft but warning. Even if Masaomi hadn't understood what she said (though she kept it simple enough that he did), the meaning would've been clear.

He nodded sombrely in reply, and, satisfied, she walked out into the rain. Masaomi watched as she left, caught in wonderment over her observation skills and the clear honesty with which she spoke to him.

And he smiled with the knowledge that, even if he was gone, there would always be people who cared for Mikado just as much as he did.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Īe, Kida-kun wa yoi hitodesu. Kare wa, Shizuo-san o okora seru tsumori wa nakatta. <em>No, Kida-kun is a good person. He did not intend to offend Shizuo-san.**

**_Kono gokai o kaiketsu shite itadaki arigatōgozaimasu. _Thank you for resolving this misunderstanding.**

**_Sore wa daijōbudesu. _It's alright.**

**_Wǒ ài nǐ. _I love you**

**_Dìdì. _Little brother**

**_Zàijiàn. _Bye**

**_Ki o tsukete. _Be careful.**

**_Mikado wa yoi hitodesu. _Mikado is a good person.**

**In case anyone can't tell the difference, Dani speaks Mandarin to Masaomi in the end bit.**

**Hello! I'd just like to clarify right away if I can, that there are no drrr! gangs in this AU.**

**I'm sorry if reading a fic with a bunch of translations needed bothers anyone! It'll only last for as long as it takes for Masaomi to fall into using Japanese, at which point I will pretty much write in all English with occasional reminders that he's speaking Japanese (ex. "I'm a jellybean unicorn," he said in Japanese.). He'll have a good grasp on Japanese at least by March in story-verse (it's autumn right now in story-verse)**


	6. Chapter 6

Masaomi wasn't usually one prone to lateness. One of the only useful lessons, of few, that his father taught him was to always be punctual. There was no faster way to make yourself unappealing to coworkers or higher-ups than to be late.

But he was anyways, as he found himself dashing to school on Monday morning with a piece of toast shoved in his mouth and one hand combing through his hair while the other attempted to tie his tie.

The squeak of his sneakers (still damp from running home in the rain) was painfully loud in the empty hallways, and he sighed in relief when he finally reached the door to his classroom. Wiping the bread crumbs from his mouth and futilely trying to fix his slovenly tie, he inched the sliding door open.

Only to witness a ruckus.

Everyone was chatting noisily while the teacher furiously scrawled whatever they were saying across the board. One girl was debating with a boy across the room heatedly, while another boy was trying to convince a girl about something that had to do with Naruto. Masaomi's eyes zeroed in on Mikado, who was sitting silently in his desk with a slightly helpless look.

Seeing as the teacher was busy, Masaomi snuck in and sat quickly in his desk, setting his back down as he asked Mikado, "What's going on?"

"Ah! Planning school festival."

"Nani?"

"We need food idea. Class chosen as…ano…eat room?"

"Restaurant?" Mikado nodded quickly.

"Hai! We make clothes…costumes! Special food."

"So…like a theme café?"

"Wakarimasen."

"Um…like…" Masaomi dug into his bag and pulled up his Japanese/English dictionary app on his cell. "Er… O tēma ni shita kafe."

"Ah! Hai!"

"Er…" He tapped the touch screen's search bar. _What…ideas…so far_. "Kore made ni nani no aidea?"

"Nartuo, animal, robot, yaoi…" Mikado blushed.

"Yaoi?" Masaomi scrolled down the Y list. "That's not in here."

Mikado didn't answer, and instead chose to watch the teacher write frantically. Masaomi looked back through his dictionary.

"How about celebrities? Um… yūmeijin."

There was the warmth again, bubbling up at the sight of Mikado's eyes widened in surprise, lip corners lifting into a smile. "Good idea, Kida-kun!"

"Thanks."

Mikado turned to the front, relaying the idea to the exhausted teacher. Everyone in the class silenced as he spoke. Masaomi and Mikado waited nervously until one boy exclaimed his agreement, followed by many others. The foreigner wasn't sure if it was because the idea was actually good, or because Mikado was adorable and everyone always seemed to listen to him and have sparkles in their eyes whenever he spoke.

"Kida-kun," the teacher called out, and he looked up. "You and Mikado's idea, you two can be the leaders!"

The teacher sat back, quite smug with himself as Mikado slumped and groaned. _Great,_ he thought. _Even more work on my plate._

* * *

><p>This was it. The moment where Masaomi would finally get to peer into the habitat of one Ryuugamine Mikado.<p>

He steeled himself as Mikado pulled out his keys. It had been with much enthusiasm and awe that Masaomi had accepted Mikado's offer to walk home with him after school to work on the festival idea. Mikado, as determined as he was to help Masaomi learn Japanese, didn't waste any time on the way there, quizzing his verbs and teaching him vocabulary.

The door lock clicked. Masaomi stepped into the apartment after Mikado, heart beating loudly in his ears. He politely slipped out of his high-tops in the doorway, preferring to stand there and absorb the surroundings while Mikado moved to the side to make tea.

What struck him first was that it was _small_. There was basically one room, with a futon pushed to the side. To the immediate left, through a kind of half-separating wall, there was a shoddy sink with a small window above, a short cupboard beside it holding a two-burner gas table, the kind that Masaomi's friends used to bring camping to fry their bacon. The parallel wall had a pair of sliding doors, probably leading to some kind of a bathroom or closet. The only redeeming feature of the tiny home, if there were any at all, was the rather modern computer sharing a desk with several books underneath a second large window.

"Kida-kun, Green Tea?" The small boy asked, looking up at the blonde as he set the full kettle onto the burner.

"Uh…Hai!" Masaomi punched himself inwardly. It didn't matter where Mikado lived, because one day they'd be living together in his apartment anyways!

'Cause they sure as hell wouldn't be living in Mikado's.

"So…I don't know any Japanese celebrities," Masaomi said as they two sat together a few minutes later, blowing on their tea with Mikado's notebook open between the two of them on the desk.

"Ah, no worry. I do." Mikado immediately started scribbling down names. Arashi, AKB48, Hanejima Yuuhei, Ruri Hijiribe…a bunch of people he'd never heard of. And who called themselves AKB48?

"Girl group," Mikado replied to the question Masaomi didn't realize he'd said aloud. "Yonjuuhachi

"Yonjuuhachi…? Wait, fourty-eight? There are fifty-eight girls in one group?"

"Hai," Mikado replied absentmindedly as he added a few more names to the tail of the list.

"We don't even have that many girls in class!"

"They choose, ne? Can be any girl."

"…I guess," Masaomi sat back on his haunches as he took another sip of the tea that would've been only mediocre, had it not been prepared by Mikado's hands. Hell, even Hákarl would be good if he made it.

"So…who are you gonna be?" Masaomi tried to visualize Mikado as a Japanese idol.

It didn't work.

Mikado shrugged as he booted up the computer, looking at a few pictures before adding UVERworld and Tokyo Girls' Style to the list. Masaomi pointed at a photo of a man with an astonishing amount of makeup, hair dyed in streaks and sticking up everywhere. "Are you gonna go as one of those…visual kei singers?" Masaomi started to laugh out loud at the thought of such a reserved, small boy wearing black lipstick and shoes with platforms taller than he was.

Mikado sighed as he watched the blonde, but under the smaller boy's unimpressed gaze he only laughed harder. Two full minutes later and he was rolling around on the floor, tears forming in their ducts and face flushing brilliantly. "Oh god! Oh god I'm pissing! Hahahahaha! My kidneys!"

This continued for another two minutes before Mikado decided to end the teasing. "Kida-kun?"

Perking at his name, Masaomi sat up and gasped to catch his breath, wiping stray mirthful tears from his eyes. "Hai?" _Snigger. _"Nan desu ka?"

Mikado was smiling cutely at him, but Masaomi could spot a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Masaomi is from America, ne? Should dress as American celebrity."

Masaomi's brain instantly leapt to thoughts of all the hot blondes he could play. Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Chris Pine…It was foolproof! Mikado would definitely fall for him when he was holding him in his arms, promising to beam him up to ride in his space ship…

"Definitely! Hai! But who should I go as?"

* * *

><p>He should've known when Mikado gave him that devilish smirk. That sudden change in personality from the shy, adorable Mikado he knew should've tipped him off.<p>

It didn't really matter in the end anyways, though. How could he say no to the person he was in love with when they looked almost – dare he say it – sexy? Especially Mikado. There was no denying him. Masaomi had a sneaking suspicion that even if he hadn't fallen for that malicious grin, Mikado would've pulled out the big guns next: the puppy dog eyes. And no one on the face of the planet would be able to survive those.

And so he found himself in the middle of his own downfall, serving food grudgingly and costumed in the most outrageous, uncomfortable, and conspicuous outfit he'd ever worn in his entire life.

Lady Gaga's bubble dress.

Apparently, Japanese people _did _know Lady Gaga. And her fashion exploits. And they enjoyed cross-dressing.

And they were sadists.

Or maybe just Mikado.

It was a week after he'd visited Mikado's apartment for the first time (and got his cell phone number, _finally_, that just made him want to clutch his phone and hiss _my preciousssss~!_). He had snuck into school early to change, wishing that he wasn't such a pushover for Mikado's goddamn_ face_ as he slipped off his uniform in the washroom.

He felt ridiculous. No, more than ridiculous. He felt like a clown that moonlighted as a drag queen. He was wearing _makeup_, for god's sake! He'd watched a tutorial on YouTube to apply it before he left for school, and had to pull up his hood and tighten the strings, then wear heavy shades just in case anyone happened to glance underneath!

Masaomi stared at himself in the mirror, lipstick and eyeliner and blush and a scowl. He let out a sigh. This was for Mikado. And…it wasn't like the teen had to see him anyways. If he planned it right, he could be in all the places Mikado wasn't. And his shift didn't start until noon, so if he asked to take a break right then he would be able to avoid him.

_And the finishing touch_, he thought, pursing his lips in determination as he pulled out the last piece of his costume from his backpack. He pulled it onto his head. Took a deep breath. Looked up.

And let out a yelp.

It wasn't that he was ugly. Or that the platinum blonde bob wasn't his colour. Or that the bubble dress was too transparent and showed off his junk. Or that the fake eyelashes were glued to the wrong place.

It was the opposite.

He looked like a girl.

A hot girl.

A younger Lady Gaga, except terrified and with blindingly pale legs.

Salt on the wound.

_No! _Masaomi shook his head resolutely. _You're doing this because you love Mikado and you are not a wimp! Learn a lesson from Lady Gaga and show them that you _own_ this goddamn outfit!_

And so he did.

He stepped into the classroom, ignored the gawks from class familiars wearing their trendy blazers and skirts, grabbed a waiter notebook, and walked up to ask a dumbfounded customer's order.

With a goddamn smile.

"Go yōken o dōzo?" He asked politely. The shocked upperclassmen kept gawking. Masaomi's eye twitched. Someone in the corner was pulling out a camera phone.

Masaomi crossed his arms, and the comical sound of the plastic bubbles squeaking against each other must've brought him back to his senses.

"Ah! Hai!... Ryokucha to dango wa, shite kudasai."

"Hai." Masaomi

"Is that really Kida-kun?" People whispered as he passed. _Ignore, ignore, ignore!_

Giggles were starting in the corners of the room. He shot a glare at one kid dressed as a visual kei member. _You have nothing to tease about, Mr. Hair Extensions and Platform Boots!_

More people were getting out their phones. The teacher supervising from the corner was wiping his glasses clean in disbelief. Customers were buzzing with amused conversation. The girl working at the food area was too busy grinning and taking a video to fill the order.

_Sticks and stones, sticks and stones_, he reassured himself as he glared at another giggling girl with a cell phone camera out.

"Excuse me?" He asked the food girl. She was too busy texting, doubtlessly sending the clip to everyone she knew. "Miss?"

He steeled himself and snapped, "Fine!", before pouring the tea and grabbing the homemade dango himself, then spinning defiantly on his heel to set the plate and glass down on the twelfth-grader's table.

"Here you go, have a nice day~!" He said sweetly, though his eyes were livid. If they didn't have the decorum to at least attempt to hide their enthusiastic photo-taking, he didn't have to have the decorum to speak a language they could understand!

In fact…

"Bésame el culo, señor!"

Oh yes, that look of utter confusion but vague knowledge that he had been insulted on the upperclassmen's face was enough to make Masaomi glad he had dragged himself through the first year of Spanish class (the only class he'd ever come close to failing, save 'interacting with other children' in kindergarten…but nevermind about that).

Eventually (_eveeennntualllyyyy…_) the keenness over Masaomi's new look died down, and Masaomi was able to carry out the majority of his shift in relative peace, safe the occasional depraved otaku asking for a picture with him, claiming he was 'super moe' and 'just like a Vocaloid', whatever the hell that meant.

Until Erika showed up.

With Walker, Togusa, and Kadota in tow.

The moment her eyes landed on him, she let out a squeal of glee and darted over to him, speaking quickly about something in Japanese that he couldn't catch between her insane shrieks and hysterical jumping and flailing.

Walker's smile had fell for the first time since Masaomi had met him, Togusa a little disgusted, and Kadota had one brow raised as if he were asking, _Do I really want to know?_

Masaomi just sighed and went along as Erika had him pose for her photos. He was scared that excited glint in her eyes would quickly turn homicidal if he refused anything she asked.

_This could not get any worse. _Masaomi groaned inwardly as Erika went off on another tangent about 'yaoi' and '_somethingsomething_kawaii!'

And of course, seeing how lucky Masaomi had been thus far in the day, it only got better, as he found himself smacking his palm to his forehead for speaking too soon.

Because in the doorway stood a smirking Orihara Izaya, red eyes flashing like those of a nightmare demon.

"Masaomi! Who knew you were such a big fan of the Mother Monster," Izaya grinned as he stepped closer.

Masaomi scowled. This man was clearly taunting him. "Well, it's just for the day. And I'm a waiter. So what can I get you?"

"Hmmm," Izaya put his finger to his chin in mock thought. "I'll have some otoro, please~!

"We don't have that," Masaomi snapped. The chafing of the plastic-y dress against his skin was getting irritating.

"Then I guess I'll have some tea. I had lunch already, anyways."

"Wait…lunch?" Masaomi looked up at the clock. 11:55. Shit!

"Something wrong, Masaomi?" Izaya taunted, and Masaomi had a feeling he knew full well what was making him so panicked.

_Ignore him._

"Uh…sayonara!" He said to the teacher quickly, darting out the door before the man could say anything.

He swiftly stalked down the hall, trying to be inconspicuous, but a trail of camera clicks and pointed fingers followed him wherever he went.

And he knew Mikado would be here any minute!

_Shiiiit! _He growled in his mind, a mantra of sorts. _Shit, shit, shit-shit-shit!_

"Kida-kun!" His head whipped around. Mikado was heading over, head trying to peek over the many people between them in the hallway. No!

His eyes darted over the walls, looking for any kind of door to conceal him, any way he could get away!

He saw a flag.

_Desperate times._

Was he desperate enough, though?

"Kida-kun!"

Hell yes.

Gagging his voice of reason, Masaomi snatched the flag pinned to the wall, ignoring the ripping sound as he pulled it around him, long and tall enough to cover the whole bubble dress. Just when Mikado was about to see him over the shoulders of parents and graduates crowding the hall, he snatched off the wig and shoved it – where else? – down the front of the dress.

No rest for the wicked. Because Masaomi could only be breathless when Mikado finally caught up.

He was…oh my god.

_._

The boy in front of him wasn't the timid boy he met on his first day of school.

This was a bona fide idol, wearing a slimming grey suit with that tapered in all the right places, shiny heeled loafers, and a fedora that cast a mysterious shadow over the top of his face. The handkerchief in his pocket was as blue as his eyes.

"Kida-kun…this is your costume?" Mikado tilted his head like a confused puppy, and Kida caught his reflection in the window. He looked like a giant, lumpy pimple. With messy hair.

_Yeah, wooing Mikado. That's how it's done. Good job._

"Uh…it's a surprise?" Masaomi said lamely. "Erm…you'll see later."

"Hai," Mikado smiled. "For show, ne?"

"…Show? What show?" Mikado's brows furrowed at his answer, and he was about to reply when one of their classmates walking past interrupted them.

"Kida-kun!" And then something about following him.

"What? What for?" Masaomi gave a confused look to Mikado, who only had an epiphany look on his face mixed with an apologetic grimace.

"Ah…show. Dance…sing. For all school."

Ice.

His brain had turned to ice.

Or why else could Masaomi not formulate proper thoughts?

"You…you…" Masaomi stammered.

"Sumimasen! I forgot tell you! Sumimasen!" He bowed quickly.

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Ah…dance behind!"

"Well, aren't you coming?" He was starting to be dragged away now.

"No! Working here! I come see show! Sumimasen! Ganbatte!"

_I was wrong, _Masaomi thought has he was dragged down the hall by his female classmate. _It can get much, much worse._

_This is it._

* * *

><p>Masaomi…did not know how to dance.<p>

Back in America he'd always gotten by on jokes and a few jerky moonwalks. Nothing too serious. People could admire a class clown, and were blind to shortcomings hidden beneath witticisms.

But here he was, in desperate need of dancing skill.

Because it seemed, as Mikado had neglected to tell him along with the vital information that they would perform a song and dance in front of the _whole school_, that all the other performers from their class had learned the complicated dance already and were reviewing it one last time.

_Goddammit!_

"We're on next!" He deciphered from one of the girls' quick Japanese, and gave a gulp.

Masaomi had followed the movements as best he could in the practice. His elbows were awkward. He couldn't move his legs more than a few inches apart in this dress. His synthetic hair was getting in his face. There was no flag to hide him now.

It was like the cliché grade school dream coming true.

And now he could hear the crowd clapping (how big were they? It sounded like a lot of people! What was he going to do?).

And now they were being ushered on stage.

And now he was standing behind the group in a straight line, hidden for only a moment until the music started.

And now the stage lights were blinding him.

And now the beat started.

And now everyone was fanning their arms to the side, one after the other.

And now Masaomi was the only one left to do the move, and he desperately tried to bend farther than ten inches among the plastic spheres.

And now a girl was singing while he tried to imitate everyone's smooth movements.

_Point the toe. Thrust the hand. Spin, now!_

_Smile!_

And now he was trying to sing backup with everyone in lyrics he didn't understand.

And now he was squeezing his eyes shut, because he didn't want to chance seeing Mikado in the crowd.

And now he bumped into someone, nearly knocking her over like a human airbag.

And now he was trying not to wobble as he stood on one foot.

And now the girl was belting the last note.

And now the music ended.

And now Masaomi opened his eyes.

And looked out to where he knew Mikado would be watching.

And even as Erika snapped endless photos of him, the flash blinding him and probably making him look like a derpy deer caught in headlights; even as Walker grinned like that stupid Bleach character; even as Izaya smirked evilly and the cogs were visibly turning in his mischievous head; Masaomi couldn't bring himself to regret this.

Because behind them all, standing at the window in his slim-fitting suit, was an elated Mikado laughing harder than anything he'd ever seen, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, doubling over and clutching his stomach, the sound brightly hopeful in the air, somehow raised above all the clamour of the cheers and claps of the faceless crowd.

And it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

* * *

><p><strong>Hákarl is...eughghgh. Read about it here: http:satwcomic(dot)com/nordics-like-fish**

**School festivals in Japan usually take place around late October - early November. So you have a vague idea of what time this story is at. Autumn/winter currently.**

**Thank you to people who reviewed! Especially those who gave me some idol names all those chapters ago. And anon on kinkmeme, who reminded me that Kasuka is, indeed, an idol in Durarara. *FACEPALM* I can't believe I forgot! And his girlfriend too. T.T**

**_Go yōken o dōzo_. How may I help you?**

**_Ryokucha to dango wa, shite_. Tea and dango, please**

**_Bésame el culo, señor_. Kiss my arse, sir ...more or less. The sentiment is there, even if the grammar isn't. I don't know Spanish either, and Masaomi doesn't know French so :S**

**EDIT: Thank you kindly to paradisiere who let me know that AKB48 has 48 girls *facepalm* **


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